Condensation of the digraph associated with a reciprocal matrix and a vector
Abstract
Reciprocal matrices are a fundamental tool in the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), where priority vectors are typically derived from pairwise comparisons. The efficiency of a positive vector, in the sense of Pareto optimality, can be characterized through the strong connectivity of a directed graph associated with a reciprocal matrix and a vector . In this paper, we investigate the structure of the condensation digraph of in the case where is inefficient, with particular emphasis on the Perron vector. We provide a characterization of this structure and derive several constructive results. In particular, we show how efficiency can be achieved by modifying a single pair of reciprocal entries, and we construct an augmented reciprocal matrix whose efficient vector extends . Finally, we propose a procedure to transform into an efficient vector for .
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.10279,
title = {Condensation of the digraph associated with a reciprocal matrix and a vector},
author = {Rosário Fernandes},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.10279},
year = {2026}
}